Known Unknowns
by LexLuthor13
Summary: Boba Fett, the clone offspring of Jango Fett, Mand'alor, carved a legacy across three wars and sixty years of galactic chaos. Evil sorcerers, cyborg dictators, rogue smugglers, braying Wookiees, smugly Princesses, and the whiny blonde kids that followed them around. Fett survived it all. Find out why.
1. Chapter 1

_**Author's Note:**_ first of all, friends, if you've come this far I hope, as Stephen King once said in a story you'd do awesome to read, you're willing to go a bit further. I've been mulling a Fett story for years, being one of Those Fanboys as I am. It began life as a lame attempt to put Fett and Thrawn in the same room together, with a bunch of other nerdy favorites (Soontir Fel, maybe even Darth Vader) and see what stuck. But I never settled on a satisfactory narrative device, one I felt could speak to disparate parts of the character and yet attempt a unification of what I see as his big three parts. Somewhere under the helmet lies the real Boba Fett: we'll get to that soon. Somewhere between Daniel Keys Moran's martial puritan (cf., 'The Last One Standing: The Tale of Boba Fett' in the excellent _Tales of the Bounty Hunters_), Robot Chicken's smugly self-promoter, and the quiet gun-ready paranoiac of the films. Somewhere in there. Structurally, we also borrowed from the great weblog series 'The Darth Side: Memoirs of a Monster' from 2005-6, which covered episodes 4-6 from Vader's point of view, hilariously, sadly, and dryly. So too have we taken Fett's life in a similar way, although from the beginning of his story in Episode II, and giving it kind of a LiveJournal feel. Which almost gets back to the overconfident idiot version of Robot Chicken's doing. This is on purpose, because somewhere under that bluster and superiority is the kid holding his dead dad's helmet, the kid who wants a simpler, past life that doesn't exist anymore. So much for that. As for the title, well, it comes from Donald Rumsfeld, more particularly from a speech he made in 2002, the year Episode II released to theatres. It addresses the theme (if there is one) of what we're trying to accomplish here: a grown-up Star Wars story. Big idea, that. A story that covers life and death and longing and loss and sex and violence and drama and humor and explosions and stupidity. All the gravy of life. And that theme? Well. Sometimes, a lot of times, there are things we know and things we don't know. Figuring out which is which - the daily battles you pick for yourself and how you get on with living - is the great mystery: your own life, and what you make of it. I hope you enjoy this one, friends.

* * *

**Dramatis**_** Personae**_

Jango Fett – _Mand'alor_, Human male  
Boba Fett – Clone, Human male  
Dooku – Idealist, Human male  
Nute Gunray – Opportunist, Neimoidian male  
Poggle the Lesser – Weaponer, Geonosian male  
Sintas Vel - Hunter, Kiffar female

Darth Vader – Dark Lord of the Sith, Human male  
Natasi Daala – Admiral, Human female  
Jodo Kast – Pretender, Human male  
Dengar — Hunter, Human male  
Bossk – Savage, Trandoshan male

Luke Skywalker – Rebel, Human male  
Han Solo – Smuggler, Human male  
Chewbacca – Smuggler, Wookiee male  
Leia Organa – Diplomat, Human female  
Bria Tharen – Rebel, Human female

* * *

Busy day. More rain. There's always rain. Not that I mind or even care. Something about rainstorms allows clarity. How if you stand in the storm, rain lashing you all around and soaking into your bones and clearing your mind and your breath. You feel it on you. Alive. The wind going across your face, howling around you. Gives you focus.

Lessons from Dad.

Focus, Boba. Always focus.

So you do. You focus on the basics because that's your training, because that's what you're told. Because if you don't do it, then you're dead, and live training is better than corpse training.

And you do it because he says to. Because Dad says so.

And if Dad says so, then it must be true.

Right?

So if you forget what you're supposed to do, if you forge the basics?

You deserve what happens to you.

Mood: taciturn. And for the record, I'm aware that I'm the only ten year old on this planet keeping a journal. It was Taun We's idea. Naturally. You need an outlet, Boba, she says, a place only you can go. Where your father and his army can't follow. Where you'll be free.

So yeah. Taciturn. As good a word as any to describe it.

My name is Boba Fett. Boba was the name I was given. Old school _Mando'a_. Means 'Endurance'.

I am ten years old. The most erudite ten-year-old on Kamino or anywhere else for that matter. My father taught me everything he knows.

My father's name is Jango Fett.

I'm his son.

I'm also his clone.

He told me once why it was the way it was. More precisely, why it had to be this way. Son, he says one day out in the rainstorm, it has to be this way because I won't live forever. But I want to pass on what I've learned. The point of knowledge is to pass it on. Very wise man once told me to do what was right for _Manda'yaim_, well this is it. Boba, I have money. A solid life. But you are all I have left. Does this make sense? You are the most important thing in my life. The only thing I've ever done worth doing. And I want to give you every chance. The ones I never had.

Buckled myself and said okay. What else could I say?

Because that's what you do. You stand up, you man up, and take what the universe gives you.

So that when a Jedi in a fake brown robe lands in your city and wants to talk to your Dad, about things you know—or maybe you don't, depends on how the Jedi's manners are—when that happens…

You'll be ready.

* * *

Writing on the go.

An aside: the journal is Taun We's idea. Growing up with two female presences, one an alien shapeshifter, the other, well, Taun We—it's a lonely thing. Her advice was to take a journal. Write your thoughts out, Boba and in so doing gain understanding. After all, you need guards, Boba. You need guards against the dark. When the nights surround you and terrible thoughts creep in to that gifted mind, Boba: your thoughts will be out of your head. Safe in a flimsi. Safe somewhere else.

Because, she says, you can't take the whole world on your shoulders. Remember lessons from your father. The only person you can control is you, Boba. Better then to ensure you're doing all you can to help yourself?

I ask Dad about it later that day, he says she's right. Help yourself, Boba. No one else will.

"And the understanding?"

Right about that, too, Boba. Find out about yourself Boba. Learn things even I can't teach you. Learn about Boba. Who he is. Who he wants to be.

"I want to be like you, Dad."

He smiles and then he says, I know.

And then the Jedi comes.

And we're gone.

Writing on the go. In hyperspace, on the run from the Jedi who's decided to brand Dad a very vague criminal for something.

Something I know full well about. Because Dad keeps nothing from me. Men, he says, have no secrets, and we are men, Boba, yes?

Yes. Yes we are.

Outrunning is a better term. Outrunning. Outgunning. Barrelling down toward Geonosis, Slave I maxed out, the Jedi running in circles ahead of us. And you know something?

Dad at the helm. The best there is. Geonosis lies ahead of us, the Jedi behind, cosmic dust by now.

The old ways, the way it used to be—behind us, too. Dad's gunning for Geonosis with all he's got. His agreement with Dooku is about to come full circle.

A new future. It's worth thinking about. Away from the rain and the sterility and Taun We and legions of guys who look just like Dad. Life is about to change. For the better.

And because Dad says it.

I believe it.

Busy day.

Squeaked past the Jedi in the asteroid field, Dad manoeuvring as clever as ever. It's a funny thing. Now that we're here, time has cleared up.

"Welcome to Geonosis, Master Fett." Count Dooku says, "You will remain with us for some time, yes? Until matters are as they should be."

And what's Dad to say to that? No? Sorry, Count, but we won't be advising your hospitality?

No. No way. There are reasons we are here and reasons we have to do well by the Count. "It's what men do, Boba," Dad says later when we're eating dinner alongside Archduke Poggle and the Count. "Men honour their debts, son. Remember that."

At that the Count raised his glass and toasted. A tableful of the richest, most powerful beings in the universe—the Count and the Archduke, San Hill and Argente, Po Nudo and Shu Mai, Wat Tambor and Viceroy Gunray, slinking there in the corner—they raised their drinks and toasted my father.

The Count's face darkened when an OOM-series Command Droid strolled in. "My Lord," it says, "There's been a disturbance in the Partition Assembly Line. Our surveillance suggests a Jedi Knight."

The room stirs.

"…And a Republic Senator."

The room stirs some more. Gunray fires out of his chair and storms out, mumbling a woman's name to his aide.

Dooku looked at Dad. And Dad was gone without a word, helmet on, blaster drawn. The table, full of the richest, most powerful beings in the universe, emptied.

Dooku stayed. So did I.

"Gentle Fett," he says. "Let us speak as colleagues, yes?"

* * *

Noon of a spring day.

At least I think it's Spring. Hard to tell on Geonosis where the sun beats down endlessly and all the landscape is wind-blasted oxidation against a sulphate sky.

So I feel good. As good as can be expected. Yesterday, Dad and some droidekas caught a Jedi and a Senator on the Assembly Line. Skywalker and Amidala, the one Gunray won't shut up about. Now they're prisoners of Archduke Poggle and the Count.

Last night the Count saw his way to speaking to me like a man. Like the man I could be.

"Your father," says the Count. "He is wise."

"Yes, Count."

"And that is precisely why I chose him to be the face and force of our enterprise. Why he remains as my attaché."

"Your Excellency, I was wondering. About the Army."

"You needn't fear, Gentle Fett." The Count smiles. "Those who know anything of our business have either been silenced or bought. Or brought in as glad believers. Men like the Viceroy and your father, yes?"

I wondered just how different Dad is from the Viceroy—let me count the ways—but aloud I say, "Yes, Count."

And then: "Why remain here, Count? Why not kill the Jedi and move on?"

The Count thought about it for a moment. Then he said, "The Archduke requires a sacrifice. Two Jedi and a Republic Senator will do nicely. To prove the might of our cause, Boba, the Jedi and their conspirator will die tomorrow. And the Republic will know our strength. Has this been made clear, Master Fett?"

I nod and I say yes. Because Dooku is like Dad in a lot of ways. He doesn't enter a room, he becomes the room. And anyone else in the room stops what they're doing and pays attention.

Giants walk among us.

* * *

_**Continued...**_


	2. Chapter 2

**Geonosis.**

I am ten years old. As I write this, I am ten years old.

And an orphan.**  
**

Imagine that you love someone.

The best, most important person you ever know. Or ever will know. And you don't know, and you never will, why you love them so much. Only that you love them. It's funny like that. To unconditionally throw yourself at the personal altar, in gratitude and forgiveness. Because if they love you back then it is forgiveness. For all the stupid human things you do and have done. They love you anyway. Despite your flaws.

You are not perfect. You have made mistakes.

They love you, and they accept that you're imperfect.

Boba, Dad says to me one day, out in the rain, you are perfect. Perfect for me. Perfect for this life.

Life, Dad?

It's a good life,_ Bob'ika_. Good enough.

A good life.

The kind you have where, when someone loves you despite your flaws and your stupid kid hubris. And you wouldn't know what it's like to have that love for them, or even begin to repay it, because you're a kid and kids don't know that kind of stuff. And they shouldn't have to.

Starting today. I know. It becomes my mission to know, and to repay.

What he did for me.

I think I have to grow up today.

And I can keep the love for him in my heart. And one day, far down the road, rebuild the love for _Manda'yaim_, too. Maybe.

It starts with Dad. It ended there too. With a Jedi and a lightsaber, and my father dead on the ground.

I buried him on Geonosis. The headstone read a simple 'JF'.

I love you, Dad.

* * *

**Coruscant.**

Haven't written in a couple years. Dug this out in fact from under the dash on _Slave I_. Hmm.

Mood: thoughtful.

I killed a clone today. Or more precisely, I killed a clone that served Windu.

You know Windu. The one that chopped my dad's head off and stared after the corpse like he wanted to throw it over the fence to the neighbourhood barves. The kind of pond scum that delights in killing men because he's determined he's better than them.

It takes pride like that to do it. To kill someone.

To lord your power over someone, even. Something as mere as that.

You have to not feel it.

You have to believe that you are everything and they are nothing, and they should die for that. For the inconvenience of existing. For this you kill them. You chop their head off and your blood boils with the heat of it. The storm clouds gather, you do what you're trained to do, and that's all there is.

I think that's why I hate them.

Clones, I mean.

There's probably more to it. But then explanations are untidy things. Behemoths beings use to justify meagre lives so they can look themselves in the mirror. They are so easy to come by and so easy to manufacture from nothingness.

But I remember their little comments. I know what they thought of me. Dad trained me as well as any of them. I know what they said when Dad and I started walking the other way. Skirata and his little gang of cronies. Pretenders, the lot of them. Fake little _Mando'ade._

You like that, Kal'buir? Using your own language against you. Well. Dad had it before you. Used it better. You co-opted it to get through this ridiculous Clone War. All those versions of Dad out there dying. And dying, of all the things, for Jedi.

Clones fighting for the Jedi. Warrior monks replete in their decrepitude and double standards.

In some ways I pity them. A whole lot of ways, actually. Fighting droids and Grievous isn't a career; much less one anyone would willingly seek.

They're bred for it. Because someone in charge decided that cloned humans are more creative than droids, and humans have the space for terror and foul deeds that droids don't. A human will look you in the eye and cry with you and tell you he's sorry as he kills you.

Droids think in patterns, however advanced they get, however sophisticated you make their randomisers. It doesn't matter. They still live in geometry. They still have parameters.

Humans don't. _Mando'ade_ less so.

Messy. Untidy. Greedy, stupid, savage little apes.

_ Fierfek._

Mood: depressed.

I lapse into the tongue of the Old Country when I get this way.

I know what they thought of me. _Bob'ika_ the favourite. _Bob'ika_ the normal one.

The problem with a normal life: people hate you for it.

They live tiny little lives. Button-down existences. Tiny corners, easy convenience. They think they have a Good Handle On It.

And one day you figure out you're not normal. No one's normal. That there's always going to be something off. Some little bit of _osik_ that eats at you.

Makes you work.

So you think you can be free.

It probably shouldn't have been this way.

I am eleven years old. I know nothing of the universe, but I posture to more than I let on.

The clone I—Aurra—killed today named himself Ponds. He answered to Windu, like Cody does to Kenobi. And Rex to Skywalker.

I know that much.

Because I know them. The clones. My brothers, apparently.

_Jetiise._

The Death Watch and I agree on this: for a thousand years the Mandalorians, my father's people, Jaster's people, fought against the Jedi with honour and distinction. They even bowed to work with them sometimes.

Working for them?

No.

Allies, sure, and for that our bank accounts will be forever grateful. But slaves.

Never.

_Jetiise. _Right.

Dad taught me that much.

He taught me things you'll never know.

That's why you're dead, _Pond'ika._

You stood up to be counted with the _aruetiise_. Of my father, but not with him. Not with Jango, and not with Jaster. You lost your legacy when you fell in line behind Windu, murdering scum that he is. And you tried to reclaim it by glorifying Mandalore because that's what kriffing _Kal'buir_ told you to do. And you think you're _Mando'ade_. True Mandalorians.

You're scum.

_Pond'ika_: not of the RCs, but with them. As bad as Skirata and the rest: tin-soldiers who thought they owned the culture.  
My father was _Mand'alor_. Leader of you all. He killed Jedi with his bare hands. He disassembled the Bando Gora, he avenged Jaster's death, he fed Gardulla the Hutt to her own krayt dragon, he fought and suffered and lost at Galidraan, and came out a better man. And because of him, the galaxy's at its knees.

It's my legacy, _Pondi'ka_. Mine.

Not yours.

I'm sitting in a Republic prison tabbing this out on some flimsi, Bossk and a vocorded Duros sitting next to me giving desolate looks to everyone else.

_Jetiise_.

I think. And I plan. And I wonder what Windu is doing. If he can see how he's going to die.

Everyone does, you know.

Everyone dies.

It's the only true and lasting justice.

* * *

Years since writing. Someday I suppose I'll compile all this. Some handsome edition no one will read. If I live that long.

If.

Three years since last writing. Three-ish?

I met a girl today. One of the universe's unexpected ways to tell you happy birthday.

Three years.

Long time to wait.

Her name is Sintas.

Sin. For short.

She's—

Sintas.

I want to say it more.

* * *

_**Continued...**_


End file.
